A Room with a View

Arrival at Santa Croce

They emerge at last into a large, dusty piazza fronted by the black-and-white façade of Santa Croce, which Miss Lavish greets dramatically. Lucy remarks that the two tourists entering ahead are the Emersons, who gave up their rooms the previous night. Miss Lavish mocks the Britisher abroad, suggesting she would set an examination paper at Dover to turn back ignorant tourists, then rests her hand pleasantly on Lucy’s arm as they ascend the church steps—only to shriek and dart across the piazza to catch an old man with white whiskers, her “local-colour box.”

Alone in Santa Croce

Abandoned on the steps and soon deprived of her Baedeker when Miss Lavish disappears down a side street, Lucy feels indignant tears rise. Inside, the church strikes her as barn-like and bitterly cold. She moves disdainfully past monuments of uncertain date, unable to identify the famous frescoes or the Ruskin-praised sepulchral slab. Gradually Italy exerts its “pernicious charm”: she puzzles out Italian notices forbidding dogs and spitting, watches three Italian children mistake Machiavelli for a saint, and sees the smallest he-baby trip over the bishop’s toes on the praised slab.

Meeting the Emerson Family

Lucy darts forward, too late to save the child, and old Mr. Emerson reaches the boy at the same moment. Together they lift the wailing child until an Italian mother appears and miraculously steadies his limbs. Mr. Emerson praises her as more powerful than all the relics, confessing he believes in those who make their fellows happy. Lucy’s earlier contempt melts into a desire to be gracious. When Mr. Emerson learns that Lucy has been abandoned and robbed of her Baedeker, he and his son invite her to join their tour; after a small struggle with propriety, Lucy asks to see the Giottos and follows the younger Emerson toward the Peruzzi Chapel, feeling like a child in school who has answered correctly.